Oppressive Rhyming: George Orwell on Poetry and Totalitarianism

In George Orwell’s 1984, the poet Ampleforth observes that “the whole history of English poetry has been determined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes.” In this article I connect Ampleforth’s observation to Orwell’s many other writings on language and political control and then show how Orwell’s discussion of poetry’s resistance to political manipulation enhances Tocqueville’s and Burke’s accounts of totalitarianism. Specifically, Orwell illustrates how an easily “rhyming” polity is particularly vulnerable to totalitarian politics, while a society containing considerable disorder in its language and politics can be strongly resistant to such tyranny.     

Domesticated Landscapes: The Subsistence Ecology of Plant and Animal Domestication

Harvesting different species as foods or raw materials calls for differing skills depending on the species being harvested and the circumstances under which they are being taken. In some situations and for some species, the tactics used are mainly behavioral—that is, people adjust, or adapt, their own actions to fit the behavior and circumstances of the species they are taking. Under other circumstances and for other species, the skills and tactics used may call for greater environmental preparation or manipulation. Therefore, instead of trying to distinguish people today and in the past as either foragers or farmers, it makes sense to define human subsistence behavior as an interactive matrix of species and harvesting tactics, that is, as a provisions spreadsheet.